Build your own ARG course – [THATCamp Games 2011]

September 13, 2012 Aram Zucker-Scharff — No Comments |

http://goo.gl/LiUBd

Suggestion: make your own Google Doc for your group, and copy whatever helps from this doc into that one.

This document is for participants in our bootcamp to identify courses they’d like to design as an ARG wrapped around an RPG.

More information on practomime.
Overview of Operation LAPIS

–Roger, Kevin, Steve, Emily, and Mark

Learning objectives: one big, two sub
ARG play objective: generally “Save the world by X”
RPG play objective: narrative object McGuffin style, and/or final product like a report to an authority figure
Outline story-arc of RPG (including time period, setting, characters, etc.)

Integrate mechanics/activities: collect important objects? annotate important primary and/or secondary sources? Role-playing! (Mastery of a learning objective can always be expressed as performance as a master of that learning objective.); collaborative development of role-playing performances; collaborative development of reports/papers/briefings in both layers

Iliad 9: Learning objectives: 1) Summarize narrative of Iliad 9; 2) analyze speech of Achilles in Iliad 9 in its cultural context; 3) make a comparative analysis of Iliad 9 with modern heroic literature/film

ARG play objective: save UConn by making students aware of the ethical implications of senseless glory-seeking
RPG play objective: save the fictional island of Connos by persuading the greatest warrior of the island not to withdraw from battle (or perhaps to seek peace with their enemies); other possibilities: perform a new version of Iliad 9 for the warriors of Connos (demonstrating mastery of the nature of bardic performance); find the lyre of the last bard (assemble it from the five parts?) and perform with it (puzzles could be integrated here)

Sample course idea (Gothic Literature) by @mscecire @adelinekoh @bewmaynes @abramfox https://docs.google.com/document/d/19A_Klp6Ana6FXpVgIMeyv0j3usr37nIbTTXxf9UUyxE/edit

Colonial/postcolonial literature
Joseph Conrad’s _Victory_? [or a course on Conrad/Travel writing?][Conrad Archipelago? w/ nautical topoi? …][or a course on Conrad’s travels throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa?]
Orwell’s 1984/ Animal Farm +/- Burgess, Clockwork Orange
Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man [or: Modernist literature]
TS Eliot’s Wasteland
Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash [Aye!] (Google Doc) [Make the doc public please!] <should be, now [yup!] (Another group’s Google Doc)
ditto _Neuromancer_ [trilogy…] [or Pattern Recognition] [P.R. good for puzzles etc!…]
Gender in Literature (American Women Writers, Queer Literature, Postcolonial Women Writers)
The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman)
Politics and literature / political fiction
Einstein Intersection (Samuel Delany) (great idea, since the story is about decoding)
Octavia E. Butler’s Parable novels

Revolutionary War – Pick a battle (or maybe “home front” in occupied city of Philadelphia or New York?)
George Washington’s funeral, or Lincoln’s
Thomas Jefferson Papers or similar collection on Library of Congress Web site
Arrival at Ellis Island or Angel Island https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xUSNYoJX3vIOe0nORl8PVOQ4PfHSXU8fuhRZMhzhTMU/edit
An early labor situation–factory or labor strike, etc.
Construction of an “American icon” such as Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Bldg
Thermidor

Foucault/cultural studies
Wittgenstein’s “ladder” [tractatus] / → path to later W. [bl/br. bks, Ph. Inv’s]?